If America has a civic religion, the First Amendment is its central article of faith.

I'm a tech geek. Whenever I read about something new, I think to myself, How can I take this and make it black?

I got a letter from this lady of Russian and Jewish descent. She asked me if I was a racist because I didn't do any White people. I was shocked, because my mandate is to do Black studies. It would have never occurred to me if this lady hadn't written this letter. We decided we were going expand the brand and do everybody.

Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man's president.

The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched.

Diversity doesn't mean black and white only.

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?